Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Discourse Studies on 19/04/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17405904.2021.1910052
Accepted author manuscript, 381 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Crime or culture?
T2 - Representations of chemsex in the British press and magazines aimed at GBTQ+ men
AU - Heritage, Frazer
AU - Baker, Paul
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Discourse Studies on 19/04/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17405904.2021.1910052
PY - 2022/7/31
Y1 - 2022/7/31
N2 - Chemsex is a phenomenon in which typically gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and/or related communities of men (GBTQ+ men) take psychoactive drugs while having sex, often without a condom. The practice can lead to increased rates of HIV transmission, sexual assault, and in extreme cases murder. GBTQ+ men are already a stigmatised group so those who engage in chemsex face multiple stigmas. This study examines the ways that two types of media reporton chemsex while negotiating these stigmas. We take a large data set of newspaper articles written for the general British public and a smaller data set of magazines aimed at GBTQ+ men to examine how chemsex is represented in the media. We find that the mainstream press focusses on extreme criminal cases involving chemsex, while the media aimed at GBTQ+ men focusses on counselling services and discuss chemsex in relation to gay culture. Chemsex is unlikely to go away, and so we address how information about it is conveyed in different media and call for more research in this area.
AB - Chemsex is a phenomenon in which typically gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and/or related communities of men (GBTQ+ men) take psychoactive drugs while having sex, often without a condom. The practice can lead to increased rates of HIV transmission, sexual assault, and in extreme cases murder. GBTQ+ men are already a stigmatised group so those who engage in chemsex face multiple stigmas. This study examines the ways that two types of media reporton chemsex while negotiating these stigmas. We take a large data set of newspaper articles written for the general British public and a smaller data set of magazines aimed at GBTQ+ men to examine how chemsex is represented in the media. We find that the mainstream press focusses on extreme criminal cases involving chemsex, while the media aimed at GBTQ+ men focusses on counselling services and discuss chemsex in relation to gay culture. Chemsex is unlikely to go away, and so we address how information about it is conveyed in different media and call for more research in this area.
KW - sexuality
KW - chemsex
KW - corpus linguistics
KW - critical discourse studies
KW - media discourse
KW - representations
KW - public health communication
U2 - 10.1080/17405904.2021.1910052
DO - 10.1080/17405904.2021.1910052
M3 - Journal article
VL - 19
SP - 435
EP - 453
JO - Critical Discourse Studies
JF - Critical Discourse Studies
SN - 1740-5904
IS - 4
ER -